Fire and Knowledge

According to a 2006 report by the Federation of American Scientists, students recall just 10% of what they read and 20% of what they hear. If visuals accompany an oral presentation, retention rises to 30%. But “if they do the job themselves, even if only as a simulation,” students can remember 90%.

—Adam L. Penenberg, How Video Games Are Infiltrating–and Improving–Every Part of Our Lives

Agree or disagree?

The main difference between a prophet and a psychopath, says Ralph Hood, who teaches psychology of religion at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga, is “whether or not (they) can get followers.”

Source: Line between divine inspiration and religious insanity is a narrow one

It’s amazing how someone’s IQ seems to double as soon as you give them responsibility and indicate that you trust them.

—Timothy Ferriss, The 4-Hour Workweek (2007), p. 106.

A task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion. It is the magic of the imminent deadline…. The end product of the shorter deadline is almost inevitably of equal or higher quality due to greater focus…. Identify the few critical tasks that contribute most to income and schedule them with very short and clear deadlines.

—Timothy Ferriss, The 4-Hour Workweek (2007), p. 75.

Try this: For one week treat every idea that comes your way from another person with complete neutrality. Think of yourself as a human Switzerland. Don’t take sides. Don’t express an opinion. Don’t judge the comment. If you find yourself constitutionally incapable of just saying “Thank you,” make it an innocuous, “Thanks, I hadn’t considered that.” Or, “Thanks. You’ve given me something to think about.”

After one week, I guarantee you will have significantly reduced the number of pointless arguments you engage in at work or at home. If you continue this for several weeks, at least three good things will happen.

First, you don’t have to think about this sort of neutral response; it will become automatic….

Second, you will have dramatically reduced the hours you devote to contentious interfacing. When you don’t judge an idea, no one can argue with you.

Third, people will gradually begin to see you as a much more agreeable person, even when you are not in fact agreeing with them.

—Marshall Goldsmith, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There (2007), pp. 52-53.

But if money doesn’t do it for people, what does? What seems to be the most important factor in providing happiness is close social relations. People who are married, who have good friends, and who are close to their families are happier than those who are not.

—Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice (2004), p. 107

Saying something short is not the mission—sound bites are not the ideal. Proverbs are the ideal. We must create ideas that are both simple and profound.

The Golden Rule is the ultimate model of simplicity: a one-sentence statement so profound that an individual could spend a lifetime learning to follow it.

—Chip & Dan Heath, Made to Stick (2007), p. 16

Imagine you’re the CEO. I come to you with an idea that you think is very good. Rather than just pat me on the back and say, “Great idea!” your inclination (because you have to add value) is to say, “Good idea, but it’d be better if you tried it this way.”

The problem is, you may have improved the content of my idea by 5 percent, but you’ve reduced my commitment to executing it by 50 percent, because you’ve taken away my ownership of the idea. My idea is now your idea—and I walk about of your office less enthused about it than when I walked in.

That’s the fallacy of added value. Whatever we gain in the form of a better idea is lost many times over in our employees’ diminished commitment to the concept.

—Marshall Goldsmith, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There (2007), pp. 48-49.